Ink's My Thing

My CW Write-a-thon Goals for 2016

The other day I signed up for one of the most irresistible writing activities, summer’s CW Write-a-thon. For Ink readers who may know, this will be my third straight year participating in Clarion West’s Write-a-thon, and although my results and writing totals have been…less than stellar(?) I still think it’s important to keep going back to take another shot.

This Write-a-thon is open to the public. So, no affiliation with the Clarion West Workshops is required. If you’re interested, and have time (and even if you don’t) then I recommend signing up to see if you can further any of your personal writing goals. I will be there along with a community of newcomers and familiar faces in the science fiction and fantasy genres.

CW also aims to raise money for their organization through sponsorships of the individual writers who sign up. I’ve never raised much, personally, but it’s added incentive to keep me focused on writing, if only for the six weeks of June 19 – July 29. Unlike National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which I’ve known and loved since 2005, there will be no 50k marker hanging over your head. You always set your own goals.

Here’s a closer look at the ones I’ve set.

Begin writing Timeless Kid (SF novel). Now, I’ve completed this novel once (before my first Write-a-thon), and written half of it probably twice. I’ve also gone back and forth over whether it’s YA, Middle Grade, or something else entirely. Yet, a lot has changed in my attitudes toward the story since the last time, and there were very good reasons why I never called it finished. Characters and philosophies have changed, and I have a better understanding of what the book should mean as a whole now. I’ve only been brainstorming, outlining, and preparing for years, right? Now I think I can finally write it. Goal: begin writing Timeless Kid, for real this time!

Just Keep Blogging. When I began Ink’s My Thing it was only intended as an author’s webspace. I would post my bio and clips, and maybe my contact information. I soon realized I had more to say, and that I could write articles at a far higher frequency than I was able to write fiction. Couple that with my overarching goal of becoming a full-time writer, and it was easy for me to see just how important blogging was. A readership has been slow to build, but the makings are there, and it’s far more lively than it used to be, when I updated just a few times a year. I have had to take a step back in recent weeks, cutting it down from two entries a week, to just one, but I prefer to think this will make my content richer, and prevent burnout. Longview. Goal: you’ve kept this up for a while. Don’t stop now!

Get ahead on WYRM reviews. To anyone who knows me, is a reader here, or has participated in WYRM’s Gauntlet, you have heard of the shadow organization known as WYRM. Not only has this writing group given me the foundation for pretty much all my creative efforts, but it also remains the longest standing of my extracurricular activities. With that being said, I owe this group, and the individuals in it, a lot. But the least I can do is keep up with its one-review-per-week standard. It’s what keeps us all in fighting form, and has given us our fundamentals. So I plan to do more than just keep up. Goal: put some reviews in WYRM’s bank.

I think that both sets some good writing-related goals, while keeping things simple (to say nothing of those lofty reading goals I’ve already set). This comes at a good time, too, as the submissions window for DC’s Talent Workshops has closed, and my mind has been racing about the one I sent in. I needed to slow down, and these goals have always been there, proving more than just a distraction from whatever anxieties that confront me.

I hope they are goals both CW and WYRM can be proud of.

So I’ll be on the beach next week, but I still plan on visiting here. Maybe with some pictures?